


Alien

by brightly_lit



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Brother Feels, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Time, Gen, Sexual Content, Stanford Era, Teen Years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-23
Updated: 2013-03-23
Packaged: 2017-12-06 04:24:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/731404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightly_lit/pseuds/brightly_lit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of when Sam went to Stanford and figured out, with a lot of difficulty, loneliness, and false starts, how to make his way in the normal world without the family that had defined his whole life for 18 years.</p><p>"If there was one thing he’d learned at college, it was that you could take the boy out of the hunter’s life, but you couldn’t take the hunter’s life out of the boy."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alien

 

 

Sam climbed out of the car he’d hitched in and thanked the driver, slinging his backpack over his shoulder and hoisting his duffle bag.  Stanford.  He was really here. 

 

He checked his cell phone to see if there were any messages from Dad or Dean.  Nothing.

 

So many students.  They were everywhere.  He’d never been around so many people at once; Dad avoided crowds.  You never knew who might recognize you and call the cops, who or what might be lurking there, what weapons they might have on them.  It made Sam nervous by proxy, eyeing passers-by, looking for sidelong glances, furtive behavior, the favoring of the side on which was kept a concealed weapon, but nothing looked amiss.  It was just like being in high schools with Dean; everyone was just a little older and hopefully more mature.

 

He followed the stream of people gathering at the registration tables, and he set down his stuff when he got to the front of the line.  A matronly woman smiled kindly as she looked over his acceptance letter and other information, which had his real name on it for just about the first time in his life.  That was how he’d done this college thing from the beginning: not the way Dad or a hunter would do it, but his own way.  He would be going his own way from here on out.  He had to.  Dad had made it all too clear there was no going back.

 

The matronly lady seemed satisfied as she looked over his papers, not saying anything about how bent and dirty they were, but then she frowned, concerned.  “Oh, I don’t see a dorm assignment on here.”

 

“Oh, I, uh ... already got an apartment here in town, so I’ll be staying there.”

 

“Oh ....”  She looked him up and down with an expression he couldn’t place at first.  He chuckled softly, shocked, when he did.  It was worry.  This nice lady he didn’t even know was worried for him.  Why?  What was the worst that could happen to him here?  He wouldn’t find a good place to sleep or get much to eat for a while?  It was so strange ... and so sweet.  “All right,” she finally said, as if something about him discouraged further questions.  Then she looked around behind him.  “Aren’t your parents here?” she asked anxiously.

 

Sam shook his head, taken aback.  He was used to dodging questions, but not this kind.  Usually he was trying to escape serious trouble, not trying to save someone’s feelings.  “Um ... yeah.  Yeah.  They’re right outside, waiting for me.  So many people in here, you know ... they don’t like crowds.”

 

He felt a distant vicarious joy, seeing the relief flood her face.  “Oh, good,” she gushed, like she felt a million times better.  “Well, I won’t keep you away from them any longer.  Here you go.  If you take this, you can go get your photo i.d. taken, and then you’ll be all set!”

 

“Great, thanks,” he said, took it, and wandered away, glancing back at her a couple times.  If this were a town they were living in for a few weeks or months, she was the kind of person he’d befriend.  Dad and Dean didn’t seem to believe in making friends, so he never let on that he did this, but Sam had found his friends came in very handy, when he needed a place to crash, when he couldn’t stand one more second around Dad or Dean, when he ran away again, even for a night.  There was never any harm in befriending these people; they skipped town before they could find out too much about the Winchesters.  Sam always tried to say goodbye, though sometimes Dad whisked them away before he had a chance to.  Sam had learned to always write down their phone number early so that in case this happened, he could sneak a final call to explain they’d moved away and leave them feeling okay about their friendship, or at least like they hadn’t been played by him.  He was still in touch with some of those people, e-mailing them whenever he got the chance from one of his secret webmail accounts his family didn’t know about.  Fortunately, neither Dad nor Dean was too good with computers.  If any of Sam’s friends lived in Stanford, he could probably have imposed on them for a place to stay before he found his own digs, but none of them did.  The Winchesters had never spent much time in California, which was another reason why this was the perfect college for Sam.

 

If this were his old life, he’d have befriended her, but this wasn’t his old life, and already he could tell none of the old rules applied.

 

* * *

 

 

 

After getting the photo for his student i.d. taken (also the first i.d. he’d ever had with his real name on it), the first order of business was to find a place to stay for the night and some food.  The hippie who drove him the rest of the way here had shared what he had, but it wasn’t much.  Without conscious effort, Sam cased the cafeteria and every other campus building for what he needed.  Wandering into the cafeteria, pretending to be lost, he quickly determined it would be nothing to break in after hours and take whatever he needed.  This was a huge relief; he’d been afraid getting food would be a problem, but they spoon-fed these college kids practically like they were babies. 

 

The more he wandered around, the more astonished he was by how thoroughly and generously every possible need or want these college kids might have was already provided for.  Dad would be bitching at every turn about how easy they had it.  Sam felt almost guilty at how easy it was ... but if he could have picked anything in his whole life to be easy, it would be this, because this was the hardest thing he’d ever done, and that included killing any number of lethal, virtually unkillable monsters.

 

Next up was a place to sleep.  He wandered dorms, classrooms, the student union, the gym, and other facilities, until it occurred to him the answer had been under his nose from the beginning, as if angels were looking out for him: The nice lady, fretting over his dorm assignment.  He’d seen how casual and disorganized the registration process was.  Apparently they never expected to deal with a seasoned criminal like Sam who might take advantage of their system. 

 

He waited until the nice lady’s position was taken over by someone else, then he wandered around behind the registration tables, watching the way everything worked, until he had it figured out.  It was a self-explanatory system, pretty basic: if they weren’t already in the system all you had to do was enter the student’s name in the computer under the name of the dorm, whether and how much they’d paid, whether they had a board contract for the cafeteria, etc.  He might have waited to do it until after everyone was gone, except the one security feature the system had was that each employee had to enter a password when they first logged in.  Sam changed into nice, respectable-looking clothes in the bathroom, stowed his stuff in a safe place, and walked up to the easiest mark among the people getting kids registered.  He smiled at her regretfully.  “Hi, I’m from the registrar’s office.  Some parents are making a big stink over there because of a mistake you made on a--” Sam consulted his own acceptance papers “--uh ... ‘Sam Winchester.’”

 

She looked concerned.  “I did?  Oh no!”

 

“If you could just fix it--or, if it’d be easier, I can do it for you.  Either way.”

 

He leaned down over her shoulder, using his height to intimidate her into moving aside, then quickly entered his own information into the system.  Single room?  Yes.  Board contract?  Yes.  He smiled as he hit save, thanked the lady, and took the dorm key she gave him to give to this Sam Winchester.  He then magnanimously assured her everyone makes mistakes, it was no big deal, and he would take care of the cranky parents.  He was home free.

 

* * *

 

 

 

He wasn’t sure what to expect when he went into his dorm, but whatever it was, it wasn’t this: Tons of nervous, blustering kids moving in spectacular amounts of crap, assisted by weirdly doting parents.  He smiled and tried to look friendly to everyone who looked at him and skirted the edges of the already forming cliques, watching closely without seeming to.  He’d collected an impressive amount of information by the time he got to his room on the second floor: he knew who the troublemakers would be, who the easy targets were, and he’d even spotted a couple of people who would probably make useful friends. 

 

Still, it was a tremendous relief to arrive in his single room, lock the door, set down his stuff, and stretch out on the tiny twin bed, knowing no one would bother him or even think about him in here, safe for the moment.  Half an hour had passed before it occurred to him: for the very first time in his life, he was on his own--not until Dad and Dean found him and dragged him back, but for real.  Forever.  Joy exploded through him like fireworks at the realization.  He’d dreamed of this day from the time he was six years old.  He never thought it would come.

 

Inevitably, his thoughts drifted back to the epic fight he and Dad had when Dad realized he was leaving.  “If you walk out that door, don’t you ever come back.”  Those were his words.  Dean had looked like Dad had stabbed him in the heart when he said that.  Neither of them had any idea how happy that sentence made Sam.  He’d planned to slip out without either of them noticing, but of course Dean knew.  Sam suspected Dean had known for weeks, because he’d seemed to be watching him even more closely than usual, not to mention being way nicer than usual, as if to make sticking around seem more appealing.  Dean caught him climbing out their bedroom window, and as Dean begged him to stay, here came Dad.  There was nothing for it but to tell them his plans.  The whole time Sam had been planning his escape, he’d thought the big danger, the thing he’d have to worry about the most, was Dad coming after him and dragging him back into the fold.  When Dad said he couldn’t come back, what Sam heard was, “I’ll let you leave.”  That was the greatest relief of all.  

 

Sam had grabbed his stuff and gone without a second thought.  He heard Dean’s quick sob, saw the disbelief on his face.  Dean had seen their family broken once before, and it was like he was living it all over again.  Sam knew that was probably the worst part of it for Dean, that Sam didn’t hesitate for even a second before walking out the door, but he couldn’t.  He just couldn’t.  Not even for Dean. 

 

Sam took out his phone and stroked the contact list with his thumb.  Dean.  Sam hadn’t missed Dad once since he left, but Dean ....  Dean had been a constant presence since he could remember: sometimes frustrating, sometimes sweet, frequently annoying, but always there.  Dean had been like another limb.  Sam almost didn’t know how to function without him; he felt naked, vulnerable, like ... like no one had his back.  Well, he would just have to learn how live without him.  He wanted Dean to come with him, but Dean would never get into Stanford.  He hated school.  He couldn’t challenge Dad, not like that.  Dean loved the life of a hunter.  Dean loved Dad and Sam pretty much equally, Sam figured, so the tie-breaker was what he wanted to be doing, and he wanted to hunt. 

 

Sam tried hard not to feel betrayed by Dean staying behind with Dad.  Sam was the one who’d made the big, life-altering choice.  Who was he to expect his brother to make it with him--without any warning, even?  Sam had thought not having any warning would be the best, that Dean would come with him if only out of desperation, to try to talk him into going back to Dad, and once he was away from it all, he would see how great it could be ....  If he had told Dean his plans earlier, he was afraid Dean might succeed in talking him into staying, maybe out of guilt.  He’d tried to harden his heart--he’d had to, to be able to do it--but the consequence was that now it felt soft as bread.  Tears slipped down his cheeks, and he thought how nice it was, to be able to sit and feel what he felt, without Dean there calling him a girl for it and Dad hissing that he’d better toughen up if he hoped to survive that night’s hunt.  He wasn’t tough, not like that.  Not like them.  He couldn’t be.

 

Maybe it was better this way.  What a black sheep Sam was--in a family of black sheep--had been the elephant in the room for as long as he could remember.  Dean tried to pretend it wasn’t like that, Dad alternately yelled at him for it and loved him all the more for it, but there was no getting around it.  Sam loved them, loved them like he loved to breathe, but they didn’t get him at all.  Everything he valued and loved and wanted to talk about was stuff they didn’t even recognize as real: science, philosophy, art--everything colleges were all about.  Maybe here, at last, he could strike up a conversation with someone about an amazing book he’d read or an incredible theory he’d heard and they would respond with something other than a blank look and a question about the state of something in the arsenal in the trunk.  He tried not to think it, but he couldn’t help wondering if Dean and Dad would be happier without Sam there casting a gloomy cloud over their happy hunting with his perpetual dissatisfaction and disapproval of their lifestyle, their ignorance and their values and everything else. 

 

If he didn’t know better, Sam would think he was someone else’s child.  Dad and Dean were like peas in a pod ... or, at least, Dean had been able to change himself into a pea that would fit in Dad’s pod, which was something Sam had never been able to do, try as he might.  Maybe, deep down, they were glad he was gone, the way on the surface he was glad he was gone and deep down he wished he was still back home pranking Dean and rolling his eyes at Dad and calculating what he could get away with saying to him without setting off a firestorm in the Impala.

 

Sam hadn’t realized how much he’d been counting on Dean deciding to come with him until he walked out the door and Dean didn’t follow right after him.  He almost couldn’t believe it, standing around in the dark on the street for a little while, waiting to see if he would change his mind, but he heard Dad ranting loudly about Sam, heard Dean trying to talk him down.  From what was said, Sam could tell Dean had made his choice, so Sam, after taking one last look at him through the curtains, wandered out to the road and held out his thumb.  That had been the worst part: walking away from Dean.  Watching Dean make that choice.  Knowing Dean thought that was the choice Sam was trying to make: to leave Dean, when really, it was everything else he meant to leave, and take Dean with him away from that life they’d both been forced into when they were just children, that life no one should ever have to live.

 

Sam thought about them now, wondered if they were still upset or if the sting was easing or if it was back to business as usual.  Truth be told, though he wasn’t naïve enough to believe it would actually happen, Sam’s real hope was that Sam’s leaving would get through to Dad just how bad things had been for Sam.  In his private fantasies, Dad would say, “My God, I’ve made you so unhappy that you’re willing to leave everything you’ve ever known behind with nothing to your name but a couple of changes of clothes?”  They would break down and have a big heart-to-heart, and Dean and Dad would drive him to Stanford and come visit whenever they were hunting something in the area--even as far away as Nevada or Oregon, maybe.  Maybe they’d come this far out of their way just to see him.  But of course it hadn’t been like that.  Of course.  It would never be like that, and that was why he had to leave.

 

When he thought about them now, all he could imagine was them on the highway in the Impala, talking business.  When Dad wasn’t concerned about something, he didn’t talk about it, just like he didn’t talk about it when he was upset about it, so even if he was a fly on the wall, Sam would never know how or if his leaving had impacted his dad.  He knew it had impacted Dean, and he knew Dad wouldn’t let Dean talk about it, wouldn’t help him feel better about it.  So basically, the one Sam wanted to feel bad wasn’t, and the one he didn’t want to feel bad was.  It hadn’t been the dramatically family-dynamic-altering exit he’d hoped for.  Then again, nothing in his whole life had been what he’d hoped for ... until he got out of that car today next to the student union, looked around the campus, and knew he’d made his dream of the last four years finally come true.  Was it worth it?  He hoped it would be ... but whether it was or not, as Dad had made so clear, there was no going back.

 

* * *

 

 

 

Sam sat by himself in the cafeteria that night, which was how he wanted it.  He was still feeling fragile emotionally, and he needed time to observe the way the students interacted so he could figure out how to fit in.  Maybe he wouldn’t be able to here any more than he could with Dean and Dad, but he could probably at least appear to on the surface.

 

Sitting there alone, all these excited conversations going on around him, other freshmen so stoked at coming to college just like him, made him lonely.  At least he had being excited to be here in common with these other students.  The two girls at the next table were bashfully admitting they came from “weird” families, and Sam’s ears perked up.  One was home-schooled.  “Oh, mine was much weirder,” the other one insisted, finally admitting she lived in a commune.  Sam felt better.  At least he hadn’t grown up in a commune.

 

Bolstered by this, and lonely enough to overcome his natural shyness, that evening he joined the group of freshmen gathering in the common room in his dorm, getting to know each other.  They were friendly and seemed eager to make friends of everyone in the dorm, welcoming him warmly.  Sam sat there, saying nothing, listening closely, as everyone went around the circle answering whatever get-to-know-you question had been posed by a robust girl who had taken it upon herself to be the group’s de facto leader.  Sam demurred or answered vaguely, and things seemed to be going well, even when he had to admit things like that he’d been to dozens of high schools and had never stayed in one place for more than a year in his whole life.  His dormmates only seemed interested.

 

All was going well until, talking one-on-one with the girl next to him, he missed the question, and when it came back around to him, he had to ask them to repeat it.  “First-person shooters,” said a jock.  “Your favorite.”

 

‘First-person shooters’?  Weren’t they all kind of ... first-person shooters?  He guessed on rare occasion they’d worked with other hunters and used giant artillery weapons that required more than one person to operate, but ... well, he certainly had sufficient knowledge on the subject to answer this one appropriately, even if he hadn’t even known what they were talking about with some of the other questions.  “Um ... well, I guess the .45 I got when I was nine,” he answered, smiling shyly.  This brought up a lot of memories.  “That was my first gun, so ....”

 

Something was wrong.  They were all staring at him with horror.  He thought madly over what he’d said, but he couldn’t identify the problem.  “But I like ’em all, you know,” he said amiably, so as not to offend anyone else’s opinions or preferences.  “They’re all good for different things.  I really like the nine millimeter I got when I was sixteen ....”  He trailed off.  There was a long, horribly awkward silence.  A couple of people exchanged meaningful looks.  Here was where Dean would make some brash, inappropriate joke and everyone couldn’t help but laugh, but Sam had no such skill.  He looked down, embarrassed, and prayed for it to blow over quickly. 

 

With difficulty, the conversation finally, slowly got going again.  Sam flew through two more rounds of questions without any trouble, and then came the question, “What’s the worst thing your sibling ever did to you?”  Sam thought frantically as other people were telling funny stories.  One girl had the whole group in stitches.  Funny, funny ....  Dean was funny.  He had funny Dean stories.  He just had to pick the right one. 

 

The guy next to him was telling about a knock-down, drag-out fight with his younger brother, and that made Sam think of the perfect story.  He was feeling good as his turn to talk arrived--if he could tell a really good story and make them all laugh, maybe they’d forget about his faux pas before.  Everyone could relate to wacky brother stories, right?  “So my brother gets around, if you know what I’m saying.”  This was going well already; a few people giggled, and one whooped.  “And I ... well, I liked his girlfriend, she was nice, and I hated to see her duped, so I told her my brother was seeing another girl from another school, and when Dean found out ....  I mean, I thought I was showing restraint, because actually, there were _two_ other girls!”  People laughed.  “Maybe three.  And he was so pissed ....  He’s all, ‘I’m gonna salt and burn your bones!’  And he gets out the salt and he’s throwing it all over me, and then he gets out the kerosene, and then he seriously busted out the blowtorch and chased me around the house with it!  Dad was mad, especially because I ... well, my hair was half as long by the time he got home--he got close enough to singe a couple of times, even though I’m fast ....”  The giggling had kind of died out as he told his story.  He looked around and realized they were back to staring with horror.  “You know, as if I was a vengeful ....”  More meaningful looks were exchanged.  “But, I mean, no bones were broken.  He didn’t cut me or anything; I don’t think he even bruised me that time.”  This attempt to reassure didn’t help in the slightest.  The girl next to him moved farther away.  No one would make eye contact anymore.  When the next question came around to him, everyone seemed awkward and uncomfortable, like they didn’t want to have to sit there and listen to his answer.  In fact, they all seemed so uncomfortable, he took his leave after a few more minutes, and everyone seemed really relieved.

 

Sam returned to his room and flumped onto the bed.  That was pretty much every freshman in his entire dorm he’d managed to alienate just now.  His only comfort, as he crawled under his coat to sleep in his clothes on the bare mattress, was thinking of how Dean would be laughing his ass off right about now at Sam’s misfortune.  “That’s my little brother,” he’d say with gusto, patting Sam’s shoulder.  “You’ve always been a freak.”  That had always been okay with Dean and Dad.

 

* * *

 

 

 

A little over a week later, he was so homesick and lonely, he finally broke down and called Dean.  He hadn’t before because, you know, it was Dean.  If Dean had wanted to talk to him, had been ready to talk to him, he’d already have called.  Sam was the one who’d committed the betrayal; he had no right to go asking Dean for forgiveness or conversation or anything right now.  He’d already texted an apology, which there also had been no response to.  Still, he just couldn’t help himself.  He needed to talk to his brother.

 

There was no answer.  Sam called again.  Same thing.  He left a brief message, then gave up.  Dean always had his phone on him.  If he didn’t answer ... he must really be pissed.

 

It didn’t occur to Sam until he was eating lunch alone in the cafeteria, again, that Dean might actually never speak to him again.  He’d expected that of their dad, but Dean?  Was he really such an obedient son that he might toe Dad’s line to the point of disowning his own brother?  The only other possibility there could be for his failing to respond was ... he couldn’t let himself think about that.  Anyway, if his phone still had enough charge to ring on Sam’s end, he must be okay.

 

Sam didn’t have enough money for books, so he did all his studying in the library.  It was nice, actually--better than hanging around in his dorm where it was all scared looks and titters behind his back.  He didn’t dwell on the possibility that coming to college had been a mistake after all.  Okay, so things sucked, but at least he had a place to sleep and enough to eat and things weren’t trying to kill him all the time.  So he didn’t have a family or a single friend.  He couldn’t decide if the trade-off was worth it, but it didn’t matter.  This sucked, his life before sucked ... it was as if his very existence was a mistake.  He was used to it.

 

The one good thing was starting classes, learning things.  He was riveted by all his subjects, raising his hand in class and asking every question he had, which also earned a lot of stares, for some baffling reason.  Weren’t these other kids also here to learn?  But they made fun of him for being so into it.  He’d tried three times to strike up an intelligent conversation with other students, about his favorite books or the latest discoveries in science or things they were learning in class, to be met with either blank stares or vague ridicule.  He remembered being accused of being a teacher’s pet in high school, but this was college; he thought all that would be over by now.  Anyway, he was nobody’s pet; in the big lecture-hall classes, no matter how many questions he asked, he doubted the instructors knew his name.

 

Apparently, when Dean called him a freak, which he did almost daily, he was right.  Sam had always thought he was just being a jerk, but apparently Dean, who had way more social skills than Sam could ever hope to develop, knew something Sam didn’t.  Sam didn’t know what made him a freak.  Maybe it was some sort of taint on him, some vibe he gave off that he’d never been aware of, because he’d spent basically his whole life with Dad and Dean.  Maybe he was an outcast in his own family because he would be an outcast anywhere; within his family was simply the only place where he would be forgiven his taintedness. 

 

He gave up trying to talk to anyone, enjoying the anonymity of a large college campus, since any time he did try to talk to someone, he ended up making himself an outcast in yet another social circle.  Yeah, he was lonely.  Depressed, maybe.  He wasn’t really sure.  There was a constant ache in his heart that he learned to live with, like he’d learned to live with never having anything he wanted.  Things were no different overall; he’d simply given up one thing he needed for another.  Sometimes he wondered if in leaving his family and being disowned, he’d given up the one consolation life had grudgingly handed him, but it didn’t seem to matter.  Everything had been stacked against him from the time he was six months old--maybe even since before he was born, or at least, that’s how it had always felt.  No matter where he went or what he tried to do, somehow it would always end up being a mistake.

 

* * *

 

 

 

A month or so after classes started, he was studying in the library when someone sat down across from him.  “Hm ... Homer,” she said.  “I love Homer.  Doughnuts, choking Bart, causing meltdowns.”

 

Sam was in fact reading the Iliad--not for the first time by any means--it was one of his favorites, though not nearly as awesome as the Odyssey, which had always seemed almost like a metaphor for his own life.  It was one of the first books Sam had ever read, since Dad kept a copy on hand as a reference for ancient monsters.  Sam glanced uncertainly over the book and saw that she was looking at him.  He smiled at her awkwardly and went back to reading.  Not one word she’d said had made a lick of sense to him.

 

“You think I’m a complete fucking idiot, don’t you?” she murmured.

 

“No,” Sam said politely, and went back to reading.

 

“I do know who Homer is.  I mean, that Homer.”  She pointed to his book, which Sam set down, since apparently she wanted something from him.  “But ... you have no interest whatsoever in talking to me, do you?”

 

He smiled wistfully.  “Trust me, it’s not that.”

 

When he tried to leave it at that, she quirked an annoyed eyebrow.  Man, how did he manage to piss people off saying virtually nothing?  “Then what is it?” she challenged.

 

“Well ... you would think _I_ was a complete idiot if I tried talking to you.  Everybody seems to.”

 

Oddly enough, this seemed to please her.  She looked ... charmed.  “Try me.”

 

“I, uh ... I have no idea what you were talking about.  Doughnuts, what ...?”

 

She grinned once she understood what he was referring to.  “Not a Simpsons fan?”

 

“I ... have no idea what that is.”

 

“Didn’t have a t.v., growing up?”  Sam thought back.  Never, when they were renting a place, unless it came furnished, and that almost never happened.  As for when they were staying in hotels, Dean was always using the t.v. to try to arrange to get some free porn.  He’d seen some stuff here and there, but apparently not that.  Sam shook his head and picked up his book again, sure that would be the end of the conversation.

 

She came over to his side of the table, tossed her books down, and sprawled into the chair next to him.  “No wonder you’re reading that like you find it interesting.”

 

Sam lowered his book again.  “It’s one of my favorites,” he announced unapologetically.  He was sick of pretending to be normal, especially when it didn’t help, anyway. 

 

“Oh.  So, then ... I sound like a real asshole.  Sorry.”  She put a leg up on the table and sighed.

 

Sam eyed her leg.  “The librarians are gonna kick you out,” he said quietly, as a public service.  Dean had always thought it was hilarious what a do-gooder Sam was, always trying to help people out and keep them from humiliating themselves, but he couldn’t help himself.

 

She grinned at him, and suddenly, she looked pretty, like her beauty was something she usually hid from the world.  That little glimpse, realizing he wasn’t the only one who had something to hide, arrested him.  “Aren’t you the little Boy Scout?”

 

“Really not,” he said feelingly.  She was one of those girls who thought they were badass, and by societal standards, probably were, but even they would be horrified by stuff he considered commonplace and everyday.

 

She eyed him while he tried to read.  Finally he gave up and set his book down again.  “What do you want?” he said, feeling like he was back in his old, normal life again for a second, where he was always having to confront shifty characters and divine their motives.

 

She really liked his question, like it made her feel like she was playing the mysterious villain in a movie.  “Well ... I don’t want to interrupt your love affair with Homer, there ...,” Sam rolled his eyes, “but, uh ... my room is a much nicer place to study.  We could order a pizza.”

 

“Why would you invite me to your room?” he snapped.  She looked stunned--and there it was, another flash of what was underneath--hurt. 

 

“Sorry, never mind,” she muttered, and got up. 

 

He stood up with her and grabbed her arm.  “Wait.  I’m sorry.  I’m just ... I’m new here, and I haven’t gotten the warmest reception.  You’re the first person who’s been nice to me, so ... I just ... didn’t know how to react.”  He must have jarred loose her mask, because all her feelings were plain on her face: vulnerability, hope, sympathy ... and a very familiar loneliness.  She was lonely, just like him.  Anyway, even if she did have some nefarious intention, he knew how to defend himself.  “If the offer still stands ... yeah, I’d love some pizza.”

 

* * *

 

 

 

So this was what his dormmates were doing when they were hanging out together in their rooms without him.  He hadn’t seen the point--usually they claimed they were ‘studying,’ but obviously no studying was getting done--in fact, they didn’t appear to be accomplishing anything at all--but now he got it.  It was just nice, to hang out and get to know someone, talk about school or life or whatever, eat pizza, anything.  After a while, he found himself smiling.  He felt like he was really having that ‘college experience’ he’d seen in movies and read about in books.  They didn’t even pretend to study.

 

“So, no t.v., eh?” she said.  She had a single room, too, and she’d pushed the two twin beds together so she had one big bed.  That was a good idea--if he did that in his own room, maybe he would be able to fit his whole body on the bed, if he lay across it diagonally.  As it was, his feet hung off the end.  It took up most of the floor in the tiny room, but it was comfortable to sprawl out on.  “Were your parents against it or something, or could you just not afford it?”

 

Sam thought about the answer, how it would only lead to more questions.  Anyway, thinking of Dad and Dean stabbed him in the heart.  He wasn’t sure he’d be able to talk about it at this point without crying, so he said quickly, “I don’t want to talk about my family, but ... tell me about yours.”

 

“Oh, I have to tell you about mine and you don’t?!”

 

“No, I ... sorry.  I have no social skills.”  He shrugged apologetically.  “It seems like most people like talking about themselves and don’t really care about what anyone else has to say, so I thought that would make you happy.”

 

She smiled.  Somehow she only seemed to find all his awkwardness charming.  He was beginning to gather her tough persona hid a fear of people.  Maybe his awkwardness made him seem appealingly unintimidating.  “I am interested.  Okay, no talking about them, but ... short-answer questions, one for one.  How ’bout that?”

 

He shrugged amiably.  Just getting to talk to another person and put the agonizing loneliness at bay for one evening was bliss.  He’d probably say yes to anything she proposed, at this point.

 

She smiled, squirming slightly closer to him on the bed.  “Were you poor?”

 

“Yes,” he said without hesitation, and without expression.  Actually, the answer to that question was complicated, but that was why this short-answer format was good.  “Were you?”

 

“Nope.  Rich.  Disgustingly rich.”

 

He grinned at the thought and rolled to face her, to see her expression.  She was grinning, too.  “What’s that like?” he asked eagerly.

 

“It was awesome.  That was two questions; now I get to ask you two.”

 

He subsided.  “Oh.  Sorry ....”

 

She squirmed still closer.  Their arms were touching.  “What are your siblings’ names?”

 

“I just have one.  His name is Dean.”

 

“Older or younger?”

 

“Older by four years.”

 

“Were you close?”

 

“That’s three questions.”

 

“No, I was catching up on the two questions you asked me, then asking my question.”

 

“I think your math is off ....”

 

“Just answer!”

 

Sam thought about Dean, and a lump appeared in his throat.  He had to breathe and get a handle on himself a long few seconds before he could answer.  “Yeah, we were close.”

 

She seemed to realize she’d hit a nerve.  She touched his arm with a finger.  “Sorry,” she said softly.

 

“It’s okay,” he said quickly, unable to stand the idea of making her feel bad when she was so nice to him.  “It’s just ... I wasn’t supposed to go to college; they see it as a betrayal, like I abandoned them.  I expected my dad to disown me for it, but ... but not Dean.”

 

Her face was only a few inches away.  She stroked his cheek.  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

 

“It’s okay.  It’s just ... hard to talk about.”

 

“I know.  I’m sorry for asking.  I’m sorry for making you talk when you didn’t want to.”

 

“Please don’t apologize; you didn’t know.  I’m just happy to be here with you right now.  After everything, it feels so good--”

 

Somehow he didn’t expect her to kiss him, but it was so warm and sweet when he was feeling so cold and terrible, he couldn’t help but take her head in his hands and kiss her back hard.  His unexpectedly intense response seemed to ignite something similar in her, and suddenly they were kissing passionately and groping at each other on the bed.  He didn’t know why he was surprised again when he felt her hand slipping inside the waistband of his jeans, but it only took him a second to catch up to her thoughts, and he pulled off her shirt.  Her grinning face was revealed once it was gone, beautiful and fragile and vulnerable.  It stopped him short.  He hung his head, trying to catch his breath.  “I don’t even know your name,” he said finally.

 

“Lina,” she said, looking confused.  The mask was beginning to return.

 

“I’m Sam,” he said, rolling off her.

 

“What--what happened?  Why--?”

 

“Lina.  This isn’t a good idea.”

 

“Why not?” she said, beginning to sound offended.

 

“I, uh ... am a mess, as you’ve seen.  I don’t know what you were hoping for, but ... you know, I don’t want to hurt you.  I’m not boyfriend material.  I’m not sure I’m even friend material.  And ... I’m not really a ... good person.”

 

“Well, neither am I!” she retorted, as if her minor infractions of the rules of etiquette somehow made her really bad news.

 

“Yes, you are,” he said softly.  Her hopeful, vulnerable face was all he could see, even with his eyes closed and his head in his hands.

 

“How can you say stuff like that and expect me not to want to fuck you!” she demanded, and he couldn’t help but laugh a little.

 

“Lina, I want to fuck you right now more than anything else in the world ... but I don’t want to hurt you, and ... and I need a friend more than I need ... that.”

 

She was on him instantly, kissing him feverishly.  “We’ll be friends,” she murmured, hands all over his body under his shirt.  “Best friends.  Friends with benefits.  Friends with the full package of benefits: dental, vision ....”

 

Sam grinned against her kisses and let her lower him back onto the bed and remove his shirt.  “You do realize,” he murmured softly as she got up to get a condom out of her backpack and turn off the lights, “this’ll be my first time.”

 

She tittered gleefully.  “You’re such a fucking liar!”

 

“No ....  I’ve done a lot of stuff, but ... I’ve never gone all the way.  Probably because, every single time I went out on a date, when I got home, my brother was like, ‘So didja do it?  Is my Sammy finally not a virgin anymore?’”  It pierced his heart to remember it, even though at the time it had made him want to throttle Dean.

 

She was back, laying on top of him to pick up where they’d left off.  “Ooh,” she said.  “Well ...,” she breathed, “I promise I’ll be gentle.”

 

He couldn’t resist her anymore.  Even if he hadn’t been so lonely and fragile about his family, the tenderness of her touch would have overwhelmed him, as would her echoes of his loneliness.  His whole life had been brutality.  This was a sweetness he’d never expected to experience in this world.  He wasn’t even sure it existed.  Dean had had their mom, at least for a little while; he’d known the gentleness of a mother who loved him.  Sam had only had Dad and Dean, rough and tumble and afraid of their feelings.  Sam hadn’t realized he’d been starving for this all his life until he got his very first taste.

 

One of Dean’s favorite taunts, from the time Sam hit puberty, was that Sam would surely cry through sex.  Again, Dean must have known something about Sam that Sam didn’t know about himself, because he was right.  If only this hadn’t happened in the middle of--indeed, as a consequence of--his agony over Dad and Dean, maybe it wouldn’t be so, but it was.  Dean’s ridicule about this had been so extreme, Sam had come to think it must be the most horrid thing in the world, and he tried to hide it from Lina, glad the lights were off, but she felt his tears soon enough, stroking his face with her thumbs.  She made a sad little cooing sound and kissed them from his cheeks, holding him even more gently, whispering kind things to him, reassurances.  It made this impossibly sweet thing even sweeter.  It touched something deep inside Sam that had been dormant, dead, forever, and brought it to life.  Only afterward, when they were curled up in a ball under the sheets to sleep, able to hold almost all of her at once in his long arms, did he put his finger on it.  For the first time in his life, Sam felt like maybe, just maybe, he mattered.

 

* * *

 

 

 

He and Lina were still all wrapped up together, asleep, when Sam’s phone rang the next morning.  He fought his way out from under the covers (this must be why hunters generally shunned them) and grabbed madly for his pants, managing to get to his phone out of his pocket before it stopped ringing, but he didn’t have time to see who was on the caller i.d. first.  “Hello?” he gasped.

 

A pause, then Dean’s voice: Guarded.  Cool.  “Sam.”

 

“Dean?!”

 

There was a long moment when neither of them said anything.  All Sam could think about was how happy he was to know his brother was on the other end of the line, whatever he might say to Sam in a few seconds.  “Yeah,” Dean said carefully at last.

 

“How--how are you?  How’s Dad?”

 

“Dad’s ... well, you know.  And me, I’m ... yeah.”  Sam’s face creased.  That didn’t sound good, but he couldn’t be sure exactly what it meant; Dean had never talked like that before.  “What about you?”  His voice sounded strained.  “How’s college boy?  You there with some hot coed?”

 

Maybe Lina could hear what Dean was saying; she smirked where she still lay on the bed.  Sam made an irritated noise and turned away slightly.  “That’s an offensive term, Dean,” he said, lowering his voice.

 

Dean snickered, but his heart wasn’t in it.  “You really are.  Now I know why you left.  I guess.”

 

Sam was all the more irritated.  “I didn’t go to college so I could get laid.”

 

“Yeah?  Then why the fuck did you?  Why, Sam?  All of a sudden, I find you climbing out our bedroom window, no warning, no nothing?”

 

Sam got out of the bed and tried to stand in the far corner for some privacy, but it was a dorm room, so this was only about three feet away from where he’d been before.  He lowered his voice further, also knowing this would accomplish nothing, but he couldn’t very well go out into the hall of the girls’ dorm naked.  “Dean, you know I’ve wanted to get away forever.  And you knew I wanted to go to college!”

 

“So, what, you don’t even tell us?  What if I hadn’t caught you, Sam?  You were gonna ditch out and that was it, no note, no explanation, you’re just gone?!”

 

“I was going to call you and tell you where I went, of course.  Hopefully after it was too late for Dad to drag me back.”

 

“Like he could?!  You’re eighteen now, Sam, you can do whatever you want.  What did you think he was gonna do, tie you up?”

 

“Maybe.”  Actually, Sam had envisioned all sorts of scenarios.  When it came to his sons, Sam honestly wasn’t sure he had any limits.  “But I guess I may as well not have called,” he couldn’t help saying bitterly, “since you wouldn’t have answered, anyway.”  When Dean only scoffed, Sam snapped, “Why didn’t you answer my calls, Dean?”

 

He heard Dean breathing, loudly and almost evenly, like he was trying to calm himself.  It didn’t work.  “Because I wanted to wait until it wouldn’t end in a screaming match, but looks like I didn’t wait long enough.  So what, that’s it?  You just ditch out to be the big man on campus and tell your family to fuck off?  You’re done with us?”

 

Sam sighed sadly.  “Of course not!  But, you know, did it ever occur to you and Dad--ever once, in eighteen years--to think about what I wanted?”

 

“We did think about what you wanted!  That’s all we ever thought about!”

 

“Then how come it never occurred to you to let me have it?  This is the only way I was ever going to get it, Dean.  The only way you guys would ever let me have what I want is if I left and got it for myself.”

 

Dean was obviously trying to restrain the nastiest words that were jumping to mind.  “So all that matters is what little Sammy wants, is that it?”

 

“No, but in eighteen years, I’d think it should matter once.”

 

“It always mattered!  All Dad and I were ever thinking about was--”

 

“Yeah?  Then how come we never once did anything I wanted to do, Dean?  We didn’t get a house.  We didn’t stay in one school.  Hell, it was all I could do to get any studying done at all, between hunting and constantly being on the move.  Do you have any idea how hard it was to learn what I had to learn so I could do this?!  All day, every day, it was Dad and his hunts!  That’s all you guys thought about!  The closest I ever got to something I wanted was trying to read in the back of the Impala, tuning you guys out.  That was your big concession to letting me do what I wanted, and you still never stopped giving me a hard time about it!”

 

“That’s bullshit!” Dean hissed viciously.  “You had friends, and girls, teachers--”

 

“Sometimes!  For a few weeks!  Then Dad would rip them away from me again!  I NEVER HAD ANYTHING, Dean!  Could you and Dad just let me have one nice thing, for once?!”

 

“But this isn’t for once, is it!”  Dean sounded like he was practically foaming at the mouth.  “This is forever!”

 

“I’m not the one who made it that way,” Sam said coolly.  “You did.  You and Dad.”

 

“Fuck you, Sam!” Dean roared.  Sam saw Lina flinch out of the corner of his eye.  Yeah, there was no way she hadn’t heard that.  She wasn’t the only one who flinched. 

 

Sam looked sadly at his phone for a few seconds.  He had really hoped for more caring and understanding.  He’d actually finally up and left, and still, nothing was different.  Nothing at all.  He was begging for his brother’s understanding, for his blessing to live a life that didn’t make him unhappy, and this was his response?  ‘Fuck you’?  He’d always thought Dad and Dean, or at least Dean, were dimly aware of Sam’s feelings and desires and needs, but maybe not.  Somewhere in his mind, he’d always believed that, deep down, they wanted him to be happy, but maybe he was wrong.  He put his phone up to his mouth only long enough to say, “Goodbye, Dean,” and closed it.  He knew he’d never call Dean again, and from the sound of things, Dean would never call again, either.  So this was it.  Dad and Dean, always going on about the importance of family, but they only meant it as long as they were the beneficiaries of that arrangement.  They meant that Sam had to do what they wanted, not that they had to do what he wanted.  Hell, they wouldn’t even let him do what he wanted all on his own.  They wouldn’t even stand by him, support him.  How hard could it be to let him live his life the way he wanted to? 

 

He stood there staring at his phone until Lina got out of the bed and hugged him around the waist.  Eighteen years of trying to be a part of this family, gone up in smoke with one phone conversation.  He shouldn’t have been surprised.  He was never really one of them.

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Well ... I thought you were shitting me last night,” Lina told him on their way to breakfast after the post-phone-call comfort sex.  They were holding hands.  “I mean, it didn’t make any sense that your family could be anything but proud that you’re going to Stanford, but ... there’s the proof.”

 

Sam squeezed her hand.  “It sure is nice to hear you say that.  Sometimes I’ve thought maybe I was nuts, thinking my family should maybe, oh I don’t know, value education or care about what every member of the family wants, not just one or two of ’em.”

 

“So what, your dad’s like some crazed NRA guy who just loves to kill things?”

 

Sam couldn’t help chuckling softly at that image of his dad, until he realized it wasn’t that far off.  “More or less.  More because he’s ex-military than because he’s a gun nut, but ... he’s into weapons, too, now that you mention it.”  It was heavenly, to be able to share at least some of the truth about his bizarre life with someone and for her to simply accept it--and more, for her to acknowledge how crazy it had been, to have someone validate some of his own perceptions about it.  Dad and Dean acted like it was all normal, but it was so not normal.

 

“And that’s all he did?  Your brother, too?”

 

“Pretty much.”

 

“Freaky.  You’re so not that type.  Where did you even come from?  I can’t imagine you coming from people like that.”

 

“Well, my mom was normal.  Actually, I hear the whole family was pretty normal, until she died.”

 

“Oh, she died?  Oh, Sam, I’m sorry.  How old were you?”

 

He really didn’t want to tell her.  She seemed to like feeling pity for him, but there was only so sorry a person could feel for another, and he felt like the few things he’d told her must have already strained her capacity to sympathize to the limit, or possibly pushed his story past credulity.  Had his life really been that tragic?  Maybe so, but Dean and Dad obviously didn’t think so.  They’d always acted like he had it made, looks and smarts and being the baby of the family.  “Six months,” he finally said shortly.

 

Yeah, she pitied him.  He saw the pain for him on her face.  She let go of his hand, put her arm around his waist, and hugged him close.  There was one person in the world who understood.  It shouldn’t surprise him that it wasn’t family.

 

* * *

 

 

 

It was great to have a friend.  They ate together sometimes, but Lina was mysterious and busy and always meeting new people, and sometimes he still had to eat alone.  One of these times, reading for class so he didn’t see the sidelong glances he was getting, three trays landed on his table all at once.  He looked up, surprised.  His hand went automatically to the back of his pants, where once upon a time there would have been a weapon.  Then he saw it was three tiny girls, and he smiled, flummoxed.

 

“Hi!” said the ringleader.

 

“Hi ...,” he said uncertainly.

 

“We’ve been watching you since the beginning of school, and we finally decided to come over and see if you sit alone because you’re too cool to talk to anyone else or if you’re really just a nerd with no social skills like us.”

 

Sam laughed.  “Definitely the latter.”

 

“Sweet!” said the main one brashly, but he sensed she was getting pretty nervous underneath all her bravado.  “We’ll just make ourselves at home at your table, then.”

 

Sam gestured encouragingly at the other chairs there, and they all took a seat, the other two seeming to have become tongue-tied shortly after arrival.  Sam wondered why.  Well, he was naturally shy.  If he hadn’t been raised in a situation where he’d had to learn how to talk to just about anybody at any time, he might be feeling the same right now.  Trying to appear as unintimidating as possible, he talked to them, drawing them out of their shells, making it clear he was happy for the chance to have a conversation with them.  Partway through the meal, another girl joined them, who had been too shy to come over until she saw that he didn’t bite.

 

As nice as it was to be friends with Lina, it was even nicer to be friends with these girls.  There was just nothing scary or incomprehensible or uncertain about them; they were open and genuine and completely unintimidating.  By the end of the evening, he felt more comfortable with them than he had ever felt around even Dad and Dean.  Once they saw what a geek he really was, they seemed to come to feel the same about him, although it took a little longer.

 

The funny thing was, none of them cleared 5’4”, so with him towering over them, and him the only guy in the group, as well as the only one who knew how to dress with a modicum of cool, he knew the whole gang must make quite a sight.  He was sure of this because they got stared at a lot, especially by the people in his dorm, who really didn’t seem to know what to make of him now.  Crazed gun nut?  Awkward loner?  Nerdy-girl pied piper?  He was causing a lot of head-scratching.

 

Apparently nerdy girls were really horny.  Whenever they were hanging out in one of their rooms together, they were all over him, pulling on his legs, fondling his torso, even occasionally grabbing his ass, giggling gleefully over the idea of all having sex with him at the same time.  After getting over his initial surprise, Sam wasn’t complaining; he really couldn’t get enough of the feminine touch.  It was like he was making up for eighteen years without maternal love or tenderness all at once.  Besides, it was sweet and well-meaning.  They told him there was another guy they tried to do this with and he had freaked out.  Sam thought about that a lot.  What kind of guy would turn down something like this?  Then again, sometimes it did feel a little Gulliver, like they could overpower him en masse.  If he didn’t know so well how kind they were at heart, and if he didn’t know he could always take control of the situation if he needed to, he guessed he could see finding it overwhelming or even scary, but for Sam, it was ideal.

 

It seemed like it must be ideal for them, too.  Whenever he teased them that they should go find a guy to have sex with, they rejected the notion with howls of dismay.  Eventually, he began to realize they seemed kind of scared of men.  He did laugh a little at the notion that he of all men would seem safe to them, but it also made him incredibly happy, that he was able to make them feel safe where no one else could.  He couldn’t really blame them, either; college guys were jerks.  Now that he was being seen around campus surrounded by girls, other girls were starting to come up to him and befriend him, but to this day, he didn’t have a single male friend.  Not like he minded--he’d had enough male company to last him a lifetime.

 

He fell into bed with a lot of these other girls who befriended him, although things stayed strictly platonic with his nerd-girl gang.  He seriously didn’t know how he ended up having sex with so many women.  It was always like it had been with Lina: he would think they were just hanging out, and then they would make a move, and his loneliness and need didn’t let him refuse.  He was always as up-front with them as he had been with Lina about not being boyfriend material and not wanting that to hurt their friendship.  They knew he had other paramours.  Still, it almost never caused a problem.  Lina just laughed and affectionately called him a whore.

 

As he made friends with more girls, some of those girls introduced him to their male friends, and he finally had some guys to hang out with, too.  He never had to eat alone anymore.  For that matter, he almost never had to walk anywhere alone, even to class.  He was getting into the swing of things.  Although he still kept a small knife in his backpack, he became used to a life without weapons, without danger.  He began to wonder how he’d lived like that for eighteen years.  He got good at dodging questions about his life, or coming up with euphemistic ways to tell the truth that didn’t reveal too much.  The loss of his family was an ache that never went away, but he was able to distract himself from it with school and friends and extracurricular pursuits.  He finally got the hang of how college kids interacted, and got to the point where he could sit down with a group of strangers in a class meeting or at a new club and not alienate them, even if none of his friends were around to vouch for him being an okay guy.

 

Nevertheless, he hung out with Lina whenever he could.  There was some part of her that mirrored some part of him no one he’d ever met before did.  Part of it was how much she knew about his past, but that wasn’t all of it.  He generally didn’t cry during sex anymore, but when it did happen, it was with Lina, because she understood and didn’t judge.  He generally didn’t even cry over the loss of his family anymore, but when he needed a shoulder to cry on about that or anything else, he used Lina’s.  She cried sometimes, too, though she was more vague about why.  Still, he was touched to realize he was her shoulder to cry on, too.

 

He found himself blurting out things he really shouldn’t, when she asked him questions about his life, but nothing bad ever came of it.  She had a pretty freaky life, too.  Turned out she actually was rich.  Really rich.  Her family owned some kind of corporate empire she was set to inherit.  She was a senior, and after she graduated, she was supposed to get her MBA, which was a shame, Sam thought, because she had so many other talents and interests.  Those conversations he’d wanted to have about great literature and scientific discoveries, he could have with her.  She was always hanging around the theater department, and when he finally saw her in a play, he thought she was magnificent.  Still, once he lifted the moratorium on talking about his family with her and they shared stories from their pasts, he discovered he wasn’t the only one keeping some things to himself, but that was yet another way in which they got along: he didn’t push it, and neither did she, and they were comfortable knowing they each had to keep some things secret.  People could sense he was hiding things, and some people acted like consequently he couldn’t be trusted, but Lina understood. 

 

“So,” she said one day, looking him up and down as he got dressed in her room in the morning.  He hardly ever had to spend the night in his own room anymore.   “Ya ever gonna ... buy more pants?”

 

Sam looked down at himself, surprised.  “I’ve got three pairs.”

 

She was making a humorous face.  “Yeah ... three dirty, holey pairs.  Not like you don’t do laundry, because I know you do, but that dirt is, like, ground in.  You should buy more pants.”  He pulled on his shirt.  “Shirts, too,” she added.

 

Reluctantly, he mumbled, “... I don’t have the money.”

 

“I do.  We’ll go shopping.  Girls’ day out!”

 

She liked to call him a girl, too, because all his friends had been girls for so long, but when she did it, it didn’t hurt like when Dean did it.  He smirked, but demurred.  “No, I ... you’re right, I should buy some pants.  It’s okay.  I’ll get the money.”

 

There was one of those moments, when they were both fully aware there was something that wasn’t being said.  She was thinking about whether she should bring it up.  She must have decided she may as well.  “How are you affording school?”

 

“I got a full academic scholarship, but it doesn’t pay living expenses.”

 

“It pays for books, though, right?”

 

“Yeah, but I cashed that check ....”

 

She frowned.  “It doesn’t pay room and board, does it?”

 

He smirked slightly.  “No.”

 

“And ....”

 

“And, I kind of hacked into the system ....”

 

She only giggled.  “Awesome.  But I’ve seen that you have money.  A little money.  Sometimes.”

 

He flopped down beside her on her big bed.  “Yeah.  I hustle pool for it sometimes, across town.  And ... sometimes I ... apply for a credit card, which ... um ... doesn’t have my name on it.”  He looked down, feeling dirty.  All his nice, respectable friends were beginning to make him rethink all these things he’d been raised to think of as a perfectly normal way to get by.

 

She loved these tales of his outlaw ways; she cackled.  “Man, you have to teach me how to do that stuff.”

 

“No, what I should do is get a job, and maybe not even lie my way into it.  You need to teach me how to do that.  I seriously have no idea how, because not one person in my family has ever had a job since I was six months old.  You need to help me go straight.”

 

“We’ll teach each other then: you teach me how to fall off the grid, and I teach you how to be on the straight and narrow.”  He shook his head and let it flop onto her shoulder, smiling.  “Seriously?  Your dad never had a job?”

 

“Nope.”

 

“How did you live, then?”

 

He just quirked an eyebrow at her.  “How do you think I learned all these things?”

 

“Your dad’s a criminal, too?”  She tsked, disgusted.

 

“No.  No, you’re getting the wrong impression.  See, my dad ... he hunts ... the things that hurt people.”

 

“He kills people?!”

 

“No, he never kills humans; he’s saving humans from ... bad guys.  So, really, he’s doing a public service.  He thinks of the money he steals as ... a tax, I guess, on society, to pay for the service he provides.”

 

She fell to giggling again.  She really loved all this stuff.  If only she knew how not-cool it all actually was.  “Whatever you say, Sam.  I trust your judgment.  But let’s not ‘tax’ the citizens for pants, okay?  I’m buying.”

 

“I can’t let you do that.”

 

“Why not?”

 

He was awash in shame at the idea of not being able to take care of himself in this most basic of ways.  “I can’t let you buy me necessities.  Seriously.  I’m sorry; I’ll get myself some new pants.”

 

“Why are you apologizing?  Sam, look: my mom and dad created this big, evil corporation that made them piles of cash.  Let’s use it for something good--for a hero who saves people from bad guys ... you know, while we still can.”

 

He tilted his head.  “What do you mean?”

 

He saw the mask come over her features again.  Secrets.  “I mean, I’ll be your sugar momma.  Today, at three.  Meet me here.  And now I’ve got class.  Lock the door on your way out.”  She kissed him and left.

 

* * *

 

 

 

He hustled three hundred bucks in an epic game of pool that day.  He used the old ‘I suck at pool, oh no I lost another round, let’s go double or nothing’ trick, finally winning on the last round.  This was always lucrative, but an approach the Winchesters seldom used simply due to the time commitment, not to mention the danger of having to get into a fight when the mark realized he’d been played the whole time.  When they did decide to go with that one, Dad always had Sam do it, because he looked so young and innocent, and because he was the best at faking mere luck during the final round and feigning surprise that he’d managed to win.  Dean couldn’t resist gloating and rubbing it in the mark’s face that he’d been duped. 

 

Sam had to ditch class so he could do this, before meeting her at three.  She still found a way to pay, though she was most entertained by his tale of how he’d earned the money that day. 

 

Nonetheless, they had a grand time.  He’d almost never set foot in a department store before.  He’d never gotten to eat in a mall food court before.  She kind of shook her head and snickered that he could actually be excited about all this stuff, but he could tell it charmed her, too.

 

Suddenly, over mall food, sitting among hundreds of other people in the food court, she blurted out, “I’m not going to do it.”

 

“What?”

 

“Sam, I need your help.  Will you help me?”

 

Sam was bewildered, and concerned.  “Of course.  What--?”

 

“I can’t live the life my family wants me to live.  I just can’t.  But if they had any idea where I was, they would never let me go, I would never get out.  I need you to help me disappear.  Will you help me do that, Sam?  Please?  You’re the only person I’ve ever met who knows how.”  She looked right into his eyes with such agonizing vulnerability, his heart hurt.  Her eyes were wet.

 

“Of course, Lina.  But ... leaving your family is harder than it sounds.”

 

“I know that.  Since I started college, I’ve been trying to see my way clear to making myself do what they want me to do, but it feels like I would stop existing if I tried, like ... like I would stop mattering in this world.  Like I would stop mattering ... even to myself.” 

 

Sam was kind of freaking out.  It was like looking at another version of himself.  He tried to calm his breathing.  He grabbed her hand.  She squeezed his back so tight, both their hands turned white, like she was holding on with every bit of strength she had, like she was holding on for dear life.

 

“You know I’ll do whatever I can to help you, Lina.  Now and always.  You can disappear to everyone else, but don’t ever disappear from my life, okay?”

 

She nodded and smiled, and the tears fell from her eyes.  She rolled her eyes at herself and wiped her face quickly.  Sam had killed a lot of monsters.  It had been dangerous and bloody and horrifying.  This was the first time he’d ever saved someone from what haunted them that left him feeling light and free.  Maybe his crazy upbringing did allow him to offer something worthwhile.  He could still save people, just in his own way.

 

* * *

 

 

 

Sam’s cell phone rang one day when he was with his nerd-girl gang.  They were all having a ball quizzing him about some of the scifi shows they’d gotten him watching, seeing how well he remembered characters and plot, laughing hysterically when he misinterpreted something that had happened, as he so often did, lacking the same reference points other people had.  Sam had been expecting a booty call from Lina, or possibly Cherie, and he figured that was who it would be.  Sam was chuckling as he answered without bothering to look who it was.  It was always the same people nowadays.  Sitting on the floor, nonetheless, he lost his balance and had to clutch the carpet when he heard Dean’s voice, even more careful and subdued than the last time he called.  “Hey, Sam.”

 

Sam scrambled to his feet and headed for the door as his friends looked on in surprise.  “Dean?”  His friends called after them; he waved and went outside into the warm spring air.

 

“Sounds like you’re having fun.  That’s good!” Dean said quickly, to make clear he didn’t mean it critically.  “That’s good.  College boy should be having fun.”

 

Sam could only think of one reason why Dean might call when it had been pretty clear he shared Dad’s opinion that when Sam went to college, he’d walked out on his family for good.  “Is everything okay?” he asked anxiously.  “You and Dad--”

 

“We’re fine,” Dean said calmly.

 

There was a long, pregnant silence.  “Then why--?”

 

“Can’t I call my brother?  What, do you have so many awesome friends now, you don’t got time to talk to your family?”

 

Sam smiled slightly, looking toward his friends’ room, where he could still hear them carrying on about Star Wars through the open window.  He chuckled softly, imagining what Dean would think of his friends.  He probably wouldn’t even comprehend them or why Sam would hang out with them.  Dean mostly thought about things and people in terms of how ‘cool’ they were.  Somehow, Sam had never really seen that before.  He was suddenly seeing lots of things from a whole new perspective.  “Yeah.  I am having fun.”

 

“That’s good.”  Sam couldn’t detect a note of jealousy in Dean’s voice, even though he couldn’t possibly be having fun.  Well, maybe he was, or maybe he at least thought he was, but looking back on how dark and dangerous his life had once been--how Dean’s still was--Sam felt like he was standing in a bright, sunny garden, talking to someone who was living in some hellish, seedy pit.  “Uh ... sorry ... sorry about ... our last conversation ....”

 

“It’s okay,” Sam said quickly.

 

“No, it’s not.  I was, um ... pretty messed up when you left, I’m not gonna lie.  Dad and I both were.”

 

“Yeah?” Sam said noncommittally.  He believed that about Dean, but he’d only believe it about Dad when he saw it.

 

“Yeah, and I, uh ... I guess I couldn’t see any solution besides making you come home.  But you’re there, you’re where you want to be, you’re happy.  That’s all that matters.”

 

Sam’s heart broke.  These words he’d been needing to hear for so many months.  Here they suddenly were.  He hadn’t realized that what was on the other side of having to hear them was wanting it not to mean it was the end.  He didn’t realize he still wanted his family, right there with him, always.  Just as long as he could get what he needed, he wanted them by his side for the rest of his life.  “You could still come!” he found himself saying desperately.  “It’s great here!  You could hang it up, come out here, we could get an apartment together.  There’s tons of pretty girls; I’m sure you’d be happy too--”

 

“Nah,” Dean casually interrupted his hysterical appeals.  Whether his casual tone was natural or put on, Sam could no longer tell.  Dean was growing up, too.  “Monsters still need killing.  But, tell you the truth, I’m glad you got out.  You weren’t cut out for this.  You were always destined for ... greater things.”

 

Sam looked down, the ache through his whole body almost more than he could stand.  Dean didn’t even realize that what he was saying was that Dean didn’t deserve anything better, that he wasn’t worth it.  Risking one’s life every day for strangers, living on crumbs, hunted and always in danger, could do that to a guy.  There had to be a way to pull Dean out of that hole--and there was, but Dean had to let him, and he never would.  Sam stared at the ground, now understanding why Dad and Dean tried so hard not to let him leave: because they felt like he did now, like they couldn’t live without him, but they couldn’t go where he was going, just like he couldn’t go back to where they were now.  It was an unbridgeable divide between their destinies and their need for each other.  “If you ever change your mind ... and I hope you do ... I’ll always be here, and the door will always be open for you.  I mean it, Dean.  I’ll ... I’ll be waiting for you.”

 

“Well ... same goes for you, Sam.”  Sam could hear how hard Dean was working to sound okay.  “We’ll always be waiting for you to come home.  If--you know, if you want to.”

 

“Dad said I couldn’t.”

 

“You know he didn’t mean it.”

 

“I’m not so sure.”

 

“Come on, Sam!  You know he could never turn you away.  You’re a Winchester.  You always will be.”  That was true, and Sam knew it.  If there was one thing he’d learned at college, it was that you could take the boy out of the hunter’s life, but you couldn’t take the hunter’s life out of the boy.  “You always have a home here, if you ever want to come back.”

 

Sam regretted having to say it, but he had to.  He made his voice as gentle as possible, though there was no way to soften the words themselves.  “Thanks, Dean, but ... I never will.”

 

Sam heard the smile in Dean’s voice, and how hard it was for Dean to put it there.  “I know.”

 

 

~ The End ~

**Author's Note:**

> \- I've been wanting to write a story from Sam's POV (so far I've exclusively written from Dean's POV, except for one outsider POV story), and this seemed an ideal place to start: where he very first embarks on figuring out who he is separate from his family ... because his separateness is such a defining quality for him in the series.
> 
> \- It was interesting to me to write this from the perspective that Sam, and John and Dean, truly believe at this point that this is a permanent change, that Sam has walked away from a hunter's life and will never go back.
> 
> \- I was surprised, writing Sam, to find that, although he's very sweet and good, he's also manipulative and calculating. (As my friend said, "He's a crafty little bastard!") I learned a lot about Sam's character through writing this story.


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